The Ohio State University, Department of Computer and Information Science

Date:

Thu, 14 Sep 1995 19:22:46 GMT

Call for Papers

Special Issue of the

Journal of Parallel and Distributed Computing (JPDC)

on

Workstation Clusters and Network-based Computing

Papers are solicited for a special issue of the Journal of Parallel
and Distributed Computing (JPDC) on workstation clusters and
network-based computing to be published in February 1997.

A new trend in parallel processing has emerged to use ``clusters of
workstations'' over Local Area Networks (LANs) as cost-effective
parallel computing platforms. This new trend is gaining popularity to
establish a new parallel processing paradigm: ``network-based
computing''. Since the LAN technology was not initially developed for
parallel processing, the communication overheads between workstations
are still quite high. This has forced severe constraints on obtaining
performance gains in workstation clusters. Many research groups from
academia, industry, and research labs have currently engaged in
deriving novel hardware and software solutions to alleviate these
bottlenecks.

This special issue is targeted to include a set of original articles
that represent the state-of-the-art in designing workstation clusters
and supporting network-based computing. Results of both theoretical
and practical significance will be considered. Topics of interest
include, but not limited to: architectural and operating system
supports for achieving fast communication and synchronization; network
interface design; implementation of efficient messaging layers; LAN
interconnection with high-speed switches; characterization of
communication and synchronization traffic; collective communication
support; experience in implementing MPI and HPF; data distribution and
load balancing; supporting shared memory paradigm; and performance
evaluation and benchmarking.

Authors should follow the JPDC manuscript format as described in the
``Information for Authors'' at the end of each issue of JPDC. Five
copies of complete double-spaced manuscripts should be sent to either
one of the two co-guest editors by March 1, 1996. Authors will be
notified of the final publication decision by August 1, 1996. Only
original, unpublished work will be considered; manuscripts resembling
any previously published work in a journal are unacceptable.